


The Poet's Farwell

by arsenicarose



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Break Up, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, For Me, Hurt/Comfort, Idk how I feel about the ending, PS. Spoilers!, Resolution, The show just kind of ended without finishing off most of the stories, This covers through the end of the series, Unresolved Emotional Tension, and for John Clare, so I wanted to write this out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 06:32:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13242498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsenicarose/pseuds/arsenicarose
Summary: John Clare has to resolve some things after the end of the series. He (and I) work through the end and relieve some emotions from it.SPOILERS AHEAD. This goes through THE END of the series.





	The Poet's Farwell

The last time he spoke to her, the conversation involved two distinct points. He remembered them clearly. He did not have to fight for that recollection like he did the memories that were lost to his forgotten past. Those memories were behind a veil, fluttering in the breeze. He could see a passing glance on occasion, but it was gauzy and unclear.

But his last conversation with her was clear. She had asked him if he remembered her “before the accident.” He had never gained the courage to tell her the truth of his affliction. That knowledge was reserved for those who knew it already, and his wife. He knew he would never tell another soul after the outcome with his son.

He had not remembered her. He felt sorry for it, and he had truly tried to recall her intensive eyes and her raven hair, to see it through the veil, but he could not. But he had been kind, she had told him. That gave him the confidence for the second point of their conversation.

It was her who convinced him to find his family. He didn’t regret it, even after what happened. It felt like he had finished a chapter in his life, tied up all the loose ends and was allowed to move forward, free of dangling thread. He had told her the same, to try. “Let us dare.”

When his daring had failed, he returned to her. To find comfort, solace, or to see how her daring went, he did not know. But he was too late. She had obviously failed in her quest too. Her hand had reached out for happiness, and it was bitten by the poison of reality.

He knew no one else at her funeral, and didn’t presume to introduce himself there. He knew he might never know how she met her end. It nagged at him sometimes, like a forgotten word or the name of a book, but he knew he had to live with it.

He cried in front of her tombstone. He did not know for how long, but it felt good to let it out. If such a good and beautiful person couldn’t succeed in her endeavor to be happy, what hope was there for him? He mourned all his losses, and hers as well, and he knew he must move on.

London had been cruel to him. The theater (though looking back, he knew that was partially his fault), the Putneys, the death of all those he had loved. He left it behind without a second glance. He had no ties there. Not the cursed doctor, his creator, his demon, he who had no love for his creature. Lily, he knew, was lost to the wind. He lost her before he had ever gotten her. And who else did he know in this plague-ridden city? There was no one. So he moved on.

He kept the name John Clare. He couldn’t dredge his own out from his memories. He liked to think that Vanessa’s spirit could find him easier if he kept that thing the same. And he had grown accustomed to it besides.

He wandered the earth, seeking out all he could see. He barely interacted with the people around him, and they avoided him readily. Sometimes, he would think he saw a familiar face. His wife, slipping ‘round a corner. His son, playing in the street. Miss Ives, reading in front of a cafe. Lily, holding a babe. They were always phantoms, he knew it even as he saw them, but they brought him some form of comfort. Like he wasn’t entirely and utterly alone (though he was). He even saw his creator once, though that did not bring him any comfort.

Sometimes, he would let his mind wander through his memories. The good ones, if he was feeling kind to himself.

One memory in particular nagged at him, like popping corn stuck in the gums. He worked it over and over in his mind, trying to work it free. When he first met her, she had been wearing a mask over her face, so that she wouldn’t catch the disease in that place he had hid in. She removed it with such grace, and spoke to him. It reminded him of something, but he couldn’t name it.

His mind wandered there often, and after some unknown number of years, he fell asleep with it. In his dreams, he gently pulled what looked like a horse’s bit from between her teeth. It was leather, with cloth wrapped around it, and it was strapped to her face. He helped her close her sore jaw, to give her mouth some relief.

“I’ll have to put it all back in the morning,” his voice said.

He shot awake, gasping. He  _ had _ known her.

He packed his meager belongings and headed for the docks. He had to visit her, to tell her he had remembered something.

More came back on the voyage, and it haunted him.

_ “Food, Miss Ives.” _

_ “You have to eat, Miss... Please eat.” _

_ “If you don’t eat, there’ll be consequences.” _

_ A tube down her throat, as his hand pours broth into a funnel. _

_ Begging her to get better. _

_ Watching her freeze. _

_ Giving her a blanket. _

_ Having to take the blanket back. _

_ “What would the Devil want with you?” _

_ Her, head shaved, accepting her fate. Fearing it, but accepting it. _

By the time he reached the docks in London, it took all he had to hold back the near constant stream of tears that threatened him. How could he have quit? Why had he abandoned her to her fate? She got better, but at what cost?

He found her grave with ease, like he was being led to it. The surrounding area looked different. He hadn’t kept good track of the time. How long had it been?

Her gravestone was overgrown with vines. No one had visited her in a long time. Could he have forced his creator to make her well again? Probably, but she didn’t deserve his torment. No one did. How could he have wished this upon anyone? Poor Lily.

He sank to his knees on the cold earth.

“I remember you, Miss Ives,” he whispered, crying freely now, “I remember our time together in the small white room. I’m so glad you managed to get better. I think you learned how to be normal quite well. Did the Devil get you? Is that how you met your early end? I’m so sorry that you were haunted as you were, but I believe you are free. I believe you are safe in the bosom of your God. I have to believe it. If anyone could make me believe in a merciful God, it would be you. No one deserves His mercy more than you.”

He collapsed to the ground, sobs and moans over taking his ability to speak. This was a deeper cleanse than the one from all those years ago. He felt like his soul was being washed through. He knew so much more of the world now, and he felt he had the knowledge to truly understand what his life was, then and in that moment. He knew, then, that if there was a God, he was getting His forgiveness. John Clare the creature could be John Clare the immortal man.

After a time, he pulled himself from the dirt, and brushed himself off. He knew he would not come to this place again, so he picked some wildflowers that had claimed the brick wall and lay them at her gravestone.

“If I were to ever pray for everything, it would be that you have found your peace and happiness,” he murmured, as a sort of goodbye.

A breeze slipped over the wall and caressed his cheek, tossing his long hair about as it passed him by. He smiled to the sky. “Maybe I’ll find my own peace as well.”

He got no answer for that, though he didn’t expect it. He gave her grave one last look, before he slipped away onto the streets of London.


End file.
